i wanna know what kind of keyboards dilla and madlib use. whats the best kind of keyboard for hip hop production. and what keyboard has the best bass sounds. im looking to expand the gear situation and i don't have a keyboard. any experts in here? what works for you?

Goto your local music gear store, preferably one that has some keyboards set up so that you can test them out. Keep in mind that synthesizers can be tweaked to suit whatever.

Alot of people have the Nord Lead, hmm.... I know Madlib has one (not sure which one though)... and a microKorg. Those two are probably gonna be the most accessible to you in terms of retail stores. If you wanna go vintage, be prepared to deal with a bunch of crap if they need repairs..(haven't dealt with that firsthand, but this is what alot of people are warned of in general). A good site to check out synths... www.vintagesynth.com

asr-10... d'angelo used that on the majority of his first record. Warm sounding. I hear they heat up pretty fast though. The new Korg Micro-x sounds good too, nice drums, nice bass..and nice ethereal pad sounds. Nice key action as well. It has the same sound engine as the Triton...but i personally like how this sounds over the Triton..

Goto your local music gear store, preferably one that has some keyboards set up so that you can test them out. Keep in mind that synthesizers can be tweaked to suit whatever.

Alot of people have the Nord Lead, hmm.... I know Madlib has one (not sure which one though)... and a microKorg. Those two are probably gonna be the most accessible to you in terms of retail stores. If you wanna go vintage, be prepared to deal with a bunch of crap if they need repairs..(haven't dealt with that firsthand, but this is what alot of people are warned of in general). A good site to check out synths... www.vintagesynth.com

asr-10... d'angelo used that on the majority of his first record. Warm sounding. I hear they heat up pretty fast though. The new Korg Micro-x sounds good too, nice drums, nice bass..and nice ethereal pad sounds. Nice key action as well. It has the same sound engine as the Triton...but i personally like how this sounds over the Triton..

hope that helps

thanks man thats some good info, i think im just gonna check some music stores and check em out myself like you suggested.

Madlib uses a shizeload of vintage keys and synths. All Moogs, Crumars, Fender Rhodes, Wurlis...all that stuff. Check the Beatkonducta booklet and youll get a good idea of Madlibs collection...

Dilla mainly used moog voyager, nord lead, the octave cat and a relatively cheap synth called the microkorg. Youll see a microkorg in alot of photos of producers cribs or live sets as has some crazy sounds and really thick bass and even a vocoder! Dilla, Madlib, Magnif, Neptunes and even artists like Beck and the scissor sisters swear by the microkorg....

lib used that vintage shit on the ynq. The most notable one would be the Fender Rhodes. Like he said, he was lookin on the back of his records and readin what these people were usin back in the day and he wanted to see if he could recreate it.

I'm not 100% on everything he used, but if you got old records, some of them state which band members played what and etc.

If your looking for some quality vst's, i would definately recommend the arturia series. Especially the "Moog Modular V" and the "Prophet V".
Although, to use vst's reliably, you still need a good laptop, interface/soundcard, software and midi controller, which can add up to nearly as much as a moog voyager alone! never mind the time it takes to setup all this different equipment....

Although, if you already got a computer/laptop setup, then i would recommend vst's...